Acheron
by Laurie M
Summary: Follow-up to 'The Furies'. They're starting a small support system of two.


**DISCLAIMER: **I DO NOT OWN _THE CLOSER_ OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS - I'M JUST PLAYING WITH THEM.

**AUTHOR NOTE:** This is a follow-up for 'The Furies', which is a follow-up for 'Nemesis', which is a gapfiller for the episode 'Elysian Fields'. It's still Brenda-and-Flynn-as-friends. More or less.

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**Acheron**

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_Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo._

_1._

He slips into her office before she's quite registered the knock at her door. His fingers steeple together, pointing downwards, a gesture she's come to recognise.

'Chief.'

'Yes, Lieutenant.' She removes her glasses, tilts her head back to meet his eyes and smiles slightly.

He takes a breath, releases it. 'I need a little time off. Just a few hours on Thursday.'

It is not an unusual request but it is a first from him. 'You need to take a personal day?'

'No, a half-day will do.'

She folds her arms, leans them against the top of her desk and looks at him. His fingers part, hands going into his pockets.

'It's a funeral. It won't take long.'

Her eyes widen. 'I'm sorry; I didn't-'

'It's for Joey. Joe Olin.'

'Oh.' She stares down, looks back up and his face has a drawn, closed look that she's seen on him only a few times before; she's never liked that look; it's one that's never really suited him. 'I am sorry. I hadn't heard.'

Flynn lifts his shoulders, drops them again, tension running along the lines. 'There's no reason you should have.'

No accusation in his voice, none in his eyes. A simple statement of fact. Four months since the arrest and there had been too many other things, other horrors, in between for her to spare any thoughts for Olin. But now she thinks of the old man dying in the prison's hospital wing and doesn't want to think about it at all.

'I know he was your friend-' she begins but his shoulders shrug again.

'Yeah.'

She is silent.

'I'll have the witness statements for the Di Nola case ready by Wednesday, so...'

'Of course.' She nods, stands up; she feels inadequate just sitting there. 'Sergeant Gabriel can cover anything-'

'He won't have to,' he says, hard.

'I know.'

They stare at each other and for a moment there's more distance between them than there has been for four years.

'I just meant-'

'I know.' He softens again, one corner of his mouth turning up. 'Thanks, Chief.'

Brenda nods, helpless, and watches him go, slipping out as noiselessly as he entered. A strange quality in someone who can make his presence felt so effortlessly. She moves across her office floor, watching through the half-open blinds. He doesn't go straight back to his desk, instead threads through the small maze to the coffee pots. Tao turns, says something, then leans forward seemingly repeating what he's said before Flynn hears him and straightens and answers.

When he heads back to his desk, coffee mug gripped tight, he's wearing a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.

_2._

The desert wind blowing through kicks up dust and grass dried out of all life. Devil's breath blowing between the tombstones. The irregular rows marking graves have always reminded him of the teeth standing up from a skull's jaw. Death marking death. It is appropriate but that doesn't mean that he has to like it.

One of Joey's daughters, the only one who came, walks across, skirting the open grave, and shakes his hand, no strength in her fingers. A young woman already faded and with a tired smile. Her eyes are washed-out blue full of broken dreams. He places a hand on her arm, briefly, just above the elbow, the way he would any victim and she is grateful.

Then nothing but the hot wind and the smell of freshly turned earth. Flynn still stands, the lone sentinel, and thinks that he should go but he can't bring himself to leave. There should be more than this, more to mark a life than this pitiful crowd. Not even that now, just him.

It's more by instinct than attention that he becomes aware that someone else has joined him in his vigil. He glances sideways, briefly, then turns his head.

'I came to pay my respects,' she says. 'And I thought you could do with the company.'

He stares at her for a moment, not quite believing that she's real. The sun has turned her hair to gold. Blinding.

'I would have got here sooner but-'

'You got lost.'

Her lips turn up into a faint smile. The dark glasses obscure most of her face but he can feel her eyes on him. 'My Sat Nav is broken.' She pauses and adds, softer, 'It doesn't look like it was much of a turn-out.'

'It wasn't. No-one wants to know the killer-cop.' He stops himself, pushes down the irrational anger that has nowhere to go. 'He was a good man, Chief. I know you didn't see that, but he was.'

'I know he was, Lieutenant. But that didn't really have anything to do with it.'

'No.'

He looks back at the grave, an open wound in the ground. The waste of it, all of it, the enormity of it, hits him. Again. Lilies wilt in the sun, their heady, cloying scent intensified by the heat and with them he can still catch that antiseptic hospital smell even though he knows it isn't really there. He remembers Joe Olin back in the day, a proud straight-arrow of a man. One of the rocks upon whom faith could be built. And he remembers Joey's hands, the skin paper-thin and nearly translucent against the starched sheets, still surprisingly strong. He had grabbed Flynn's arm, begged for forgiveness. It had been delirium, incoherent words addressed to a series of unknown people who weren't really there. Flynn had stood in for all of them, the only one who had turned up to listen and he'd had no forgiveness to give.

He brings himself back to the present and the woman standing beside him. It's the longest he's ever known her to be silent and it is unsettling. When he looks at her she has removed the sunglasses and wipes the back of her hand against her forehead before replacing them. Her face is flushed, strands of hair clinging damply to her neck.

'I'll never get used to how hot this wind is,' she says, apologetic.

He tilts his head. 'It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.'

She stares at him, wonder on her face, her lips parting. 'That...'

He laughs slightly and feels a sudden rush of affection for this impossible woman with her steel-trap of a mind and her sheer hopelessness at anything that isn't her work. 'That's Raymond Chandler. And that was a guy who knew a few things about L.A.'

'Oh.'

But she still keeps her eyes on him.

He looks back down at the grave. He hates cemeteries. He hates hospitals, and all the houses of the dying and the dead. He turns to her.

'Let's get out of this wind.'

_3._

They sit in his car. The patch of shade it's parked under - boughs of a tree shaken by the wind - plays dappled patterns across the windshield. Her sunglasses are back in her bag and she squints against the light.

'At least the weather's nice,' she says.

He grunts. 'Mm. It doesn't feel like it should be. The sunshine ... it seems wrong. It should be raining, like... That thing when the weather reflects how people feel. I can't remember what it's called.'

She thinks. 'Pathetic fallacy?'

'Yeah, that. But life doesn't work that way. What's the opposite of that?'

'I don't know; it's just incongruous, I guess.'

He grunts again. There's a pause, then: 'Did you ever listen to that tape?'

'No. Did you?'

'Uh-huh.'

She feels her skin prickle, clammy heat crawling down her spine. 'Why?'

His shoulders rise, lower slowly. 'Someone had to. When I'd see Joey- When I'd see him he'd talk - not to me, I don't think he knew I was there, he was just talking - I didn't hear what he was saying most of the time. I'd just hear that.' There is a tick in his jaw, muscles bunching over the bone. 'Never say never, he said that - remember?'

'I remember.' Her throat feels rough.

'I keep thinking about that, wondering.'

She rests a hand on his sleeve and he looks at her. 'You're not like him, Lieutenant. You're not.'

'Maybe.' He shrugs. 'Here's hoping.'

'I don't need to hope,' she says fiercely, her fingers tightening. 'I know.'

His eyes wander over her face and something in the lines of his shoulders, the way he holds himself, changes. Her phone rings and she is still for a moment before withdrawing.

'Hello?'

Sergeant Gabriel's voice, efficient and apologetic. She hears Flynn's ringer sound and he's checked it before she's finished talking to the sergeant. Brenda drops the phone back into her bag, gazes longingly at the silver wrapper with its dense chocolate contents and closes it. 'Take the rest of the day off, Lieutenant.'

'Chief, please' -he raises a hand- 'I need to think about something else. We have work to do; I- I can't just sit around my house.'

She hesitates, thinking that the relief she feels at his request is selfish, because not having to lose a man off her squad, even for half a day, is one less thing to worry about. She lets out a breath. 'Alright. But if I think for one moment that you're distracted-'

It's a familiar smile that greets her words; at least, it's the ghost of something familiar. 'Trust me, Chief, you'll never see anyone less distracted.'

She smiles, slightly, in answer. He looks away, staring ahead again. She's never called him by his name, his first name, she thinks. There is safety in formality and she needs safety. What would it take, she wonders, to change that? He turns back suddenly, meets her eyes, and she feels heat rush into her face. Caught. And she can't look away.

'Do you know how to get to the crime scene?' he asks eventually.

'I-' She shakes her head sharply. 'I have a map. I'll look it up.'

A combination of unnameable emotions ripples across his face. 'How about I go ahead and you can follow me.'

'Oh. Yes. Yes, thank-you, Lieutenant.'

She grapples with the door-handle, her fingers clumsy, finding her way out. The air outside hits her, a solid wall of heat.

'Chief.' His voice is soft. She looks over her shoulder. 'Thanks.'

She nods and escapes, dryness searing her lungs with every breath.

_**FIN**_


End file.
